How universities go green: the four key factors that drive environmental performance improvement
Research has identified four key institutional factors that together drive environmental performance improvement in universities. These factors are:
The active, public support of senior university management — for a programme of environmental performance improvement. The support of the Vice-Chancellor or Principal is particularly important.
Full-time staff dedicated to environmental management — developing objectives, setting priorities, and significant, timebound targets to fulfil them.
A written, publicly available environmental policy — to provide a formal demonstration of intent regarding environmental performance improvement, and against which to compare practice.
A comprehensive review to investigate all the environmental impacts of the institution — so that current impacts are measured, potential improvements are identified and performance is monitored.
The Go Green campaign is being run by students at UEA and asks that the four requests above be put in place. The campaign recognises the work already being done by UEA to improve environmental performance but asks that more be done in certain areas, particularly waste and purchasing. We have an unusually large proportion of environmentally concerned people at UEA and a well respected Environmental Sciences School. Let's make sure we have the best Higher Education environmental performance!
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